JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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tkoind2
As for Fuld. If we fall into a depression he should be the first against the wall.
Posted in: Congress opens hearings on financial meltdown with focus on execs' compensation
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tkoind2
Spend one day talking to investment bankers and none of this will shock or surprise you. Traders and their execs think about today and maybe 5years forward. They think about this year's bonus and raising the bar on their profits before thinking about anything else. They are self important neo-autocrats who believe their own propaganda about the "art of investing" and "visions of the future".
And there has been not a soul to bring them back to reality for a very long time now. Deregulation has given them a blank check to do what they want for a long time. Essentially gambling with the global economy. And making massive amounts of money along the way.
Meanwhile they have cut full time jobs and replaced them with low paying temp positions, cut costs by doubling up on work load for workers and cutting back on benefits.
These are not moral people. These are money people. And it is no wonder what so ever that they have burned the global economy while making massive money themselves. Did anyone think these guys would lose anything they could avoid losing? Or give something back? If you believe that you are naive.
Moral of the story? We need to regulate and control the private sector because it CAN NOT BE TRUSTED to do what is in the best interests of the public, of the nation and of the world. Period!
Posted in: Congress opens hearings on financial meltdown with focus on execs' compensation
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tkoind2
I am very worried about J-banks going after strong stakes in external banks. Don't they have enough of their own issues to deal with? And won't this increase risk to both the J consumer and economy?
Posted in: Fed OKs request for Japan stake in Morgan Stanley
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tkoind2
Clearly sounds like this lady was suffering from severe depression. Why doesn't the article talk about that?
I know of a lot of people in Japan who suffer silently from severe depression. Most just live lives that don't move for them and with very little support or recognition for their illness. Often it is just dismissed as stress, or worst, as weakness.
Don't the numbers of suicides, family related murders and other actions that are on the rise make anyone in the government wonder what is going on? Why isn't there more being done to look after the mental welfare of the Japanese public? Clearly it is needed, clearly it is a major problem and clearly the causes are, in part, coming from a failure to give people the time they need to spend at home with family dealing with family issues.
Everyone in this story is a victim.
Posted in: Despair led Fukuoka mom to kill 6-year-old son
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tkoind2
Iraq is the best training center for urban warfare and terror ever imagined. Money could not buy the training and recruiting that terror groups are getting. What's more, IT IS ALL FREE, courtesy of the Bush administration. Palin and McCain will keep it open for them and open up a whole new one in Iran if given half a chance.
Posted in: Palin defends terrorist comment against Obama
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tkoind2
Look I live in Chiba and the drivers out here are a nightmare. Guys trying to pretend their car is powerful, some lady chatting on her cell phone, some other twit watching TV and then there is just the guy who doesn't care.
I spend every trip to the Eki trying not to get killed by traffic in a relatively quiet area. But the quality of drivers her makes that a hard challenge.
At the painted and signed crosswalks these morons can't even be bothered to stop for old ladies trying to cross on a rainy day. Too in a hurry to stop at the red light 50meters ahead I guess.
Drivers her suck for all the money they spend on it. And are the worst I have experienced since Oregon. It is a wonder the streets are not running the blood of people run over every day. Thank goodness for tiny curvy streets to keep the speed down.
Posted in: Man found dead on street after suspected hit-and-run
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tkoind2
About Flags. What value does any flag have if the country it represents is in a decline so bad it hasn't been seen since the fall of the Roman empire?
So just what is our flag representing today? A failing economy, close to 50% of the population unable to have proper medical care, people losing their homes, jobs departing overseas as fast as you can blink. Our education systems are so behind our kids may not be competive with Bangladesh soon. And you can't drive on a bridge without wondering if it safe or not.
We've lost our way people. Spent the last eight years fighting a war that doesn't deliver anything to the average American and has made a mess of Iraq. We've spent so much time drawing lines between ourselves that we can barely see across the wide gap to realize we are all Americans.
It is time for change. Real change. Change driven by people opening up to get things done that we need done. McCain is not telling us his plan, other than the obviously flawed $5K bonus for insurance companies. He's got no agenda to offer up so they have turned to dirty politics.
If McCain really means change, then let's hear it? I don't buy Sara Palin any more than the sales lady who comes knocking on the door. She's trying to sell me something but not giving me any details about what it is she's selling. Stop straight talking random sound bites and put something meaningful on the table.
If you can't, get out of the way because change is coming and McCain/Palin are just another bump in the road to making change happen.
Posted in: Palin defends terrorist comment against Obama
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tkoind2
Sarge, forced to spend on the war on terror?
A. Bush started Iraq and it had ZERO to do with the war on terror. Of course now it is the best training ground money can buy for terrorists. And we are playing for hand over fist. Just how happy are you about funding terrorist training in Iraq?
B. The real war on terror is in Afghanistan and we are losing it because we are spending nearly nothing on it. It has contributed to the destabilization of Pakistan and encouraged the influence of Iran, as Iraq has.
No one held a gun to GWB for Iraq. That misery is self-inflicted and you and I are paying for it. Paying instead of getting better health care, providing education so our kids are as smart and capable as the kids in India and Pakistan. We should have been spending that money on infrastructure and making our nation secure instead of starting up some person vendetta war with a nation that had nothing to do with 911.
Palin and McCain promise more of the same old nonsense we've seen the right produce for eight years. They will play the fear card, the god card, the white picket fence card and talk about how great America is. All that time missing the fact that Joe Sixpack, to quote Palin, is now Joe SickPac because he can't afford proper health care, his kids are now less competitive than kids getting good training in India. His white picket fence has been replaced with a flat in a cheap low rent apartment and his American dream job has been shipped to Bangladesh along with his paycheck. And if he has kids over 18, chances are they are getting shot at in some war we didn't need to fight.
Reality check. Look out a window and you can see the US is sliding into a decline it may not recover from unless we get on it and change things. Obama will help stem the tide and give us time to address our problems. Palin and McCain will have us all living as trailer trash or worst before their first term is up.
Posted in: Palin defends terrorist comment against Obama
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tkoind2
Getting very tired of this redneck hockey mom and her quaint Alaskan approach to making a mockery of the US political system. Even more than Bush managed to do.
I think what we are seeing here is desperation from the McCain camp. They know they've made a serious error with Palin and are having to try to find ways to tear down Obama to make up for it.
McCain has offered nothing that makes most of us feel any better about his potential presidency than we do about GWB. And his $5000 med insurance idea sounds like help for insurance companies and another bill we will all have to pay if we want to have any kind of health care.
This on top of Palin's already heading off on a VP initiated cold war with Russia and all her other flat earth notions of how to run the nation.
If the US public vote this pair in on their "maverick" (read as more of the same) platform then the US deserves the decline that will follow.
If the US wises up and realizes the mistakes of the past eight years, then we can start sorting our problems and get the nation moving again.
Palin, nice try but I doubt anyone will buy your accusation. Go back to Alaska and stay there.
Posted in: Palin defends terrorist comment against Obama
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tkoind2
The right again likes to portray all spending as evil. But the fact remains that proper spending can make a significant difference and benefit Tax payers.
Why would having a proper social healthcare system discourage people from becoming doctors if the compensation was good and rational and the education necessary to get there was also socialized? Imagine less loans they have to pay back, greater support across the board for doctors and stronger protections for both their performance and security.
If it weeds out people who are in it only for money, so be it.
The education system will provide more opportunity for Joe Average's kid to grow up to be a doctor instead of ending up in some telemarketing firm because he had to work to support his family and could not afford to go to school because Mom could not seek early preventative health care and missed catching cancer early enough to address it.
See these things are interrelated.
Tax payers do most of the hard work and suffer most of the inadequacies of our society. Instead of giving business a break and all the benefits, I'm saying give them to the people who make business possible. The workers who do the work, the consumers who buy the products and the tax payers who make the nation possible.
I'm sick to death of the right saying spending all the time like it is an evil word. When the average worker needs not spending cuts to rational sensible programs, but spending cuts in the form of better policies and less money wasted on wars we didn't need to fight.
You can dream on all you want about some great right wing revolution that will never manifest. We need solutions to problems that are making life hard on people today. Right now! Mom's who can't work enough hours to feed families and take care of ailing aged parents, kids who can't get proper educations or hope for higher education, families that need health care, public transportation and better opportunities.
Fixing things costs money. Like it or not. And Palin and McCain will not spend the money on the average American. They will continue to waste it on wars we should end and on tax breaks to people who have enough money already.
I'm from a working class family in a Red voting state and I've seen what working Americans need. These are not lazy people looking for hand outs. They are hard working people who want better for their kids and families. They are tax paying citizens who are tired of being the last on the list of concerns for politicians. And they are people who need some spending in their lives to sort things out. Plain and simple. Obama has a far better chance of helping these people than another 4 years of Bush sequels.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
What is it with the right and equating proper social management and government big brother? Are you really happy with the fact that people don't have health care? Would you rather they do without than have a system at least as good as Japan? Would you rather continue feeding private insurance companies that are raking profits or funding one that at least gives people a rational base level of coverage?
The Middle Class you claim to support need jobs, education, health care and support for the elderly. Just how to do you provide for this privately in a world without much government intervention? The problems don't go away if the government doesn't address them. They fester. We've seen this for a very long time. And that festering is harming the middle and working classes the most. So do you really think you can fix things without programs? Who will help? Clearly the people cannot solve these problems alone or they would have by now.
Social investment makes sense! Period! Look at the best run nations on the planet who have great health care, great infrastructure, great eduction and wonderful work life balance. Why don't you want that for the Middle and Working classes at home?
Let's look at a model. Universal health care saves us money through proper preventative care and by helping people maintain their health instead of ending up on the dole.
Investment in infrastructure will create jobs, demand for products and services and thus good business for companies. Working people pay taxes and that comes back into cities, states and the federal system. It worked with the new deal and it will work now.
Education. We should be educating any and everyone in the country who wants an education. It is an investment in our business potential and in our ability to stay ahead in the economic and technology races. And it helps make sure we get change as educated people are more likely to be active in social and political issues.
Palin and McCain won't make these things happen. But Obama will do more to at least get them rolling. This is what middle America needs.
Bottom line it isn't 1847 and you can't move out west away from cities and government to hard live it on your own. We are a modern nation with modern needs that mean good and intelligent governance and the presense of national programs that assure key basics. The time for impotent government is over. We need intelligent involvement to solve our problems. And in doing so we help pave the way for long term change. Fail these points and we slide first to 2nd world status and later, maybe a lot worst.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
SushiSake3. I sincerely hope so!
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
Nippon5. And just how smart is it to say everything is terrible and both sides won't improve things while suggesting that people should force change when you know, very well, that revolutionary populist thinking has been dead in America for a very long time.
Look, my politics run far left of Obama. And I would be the first to admit that radical change is required to return power to the people for the development of a truly democratic system. But the facts are this doesn't solve any immediate problems and isn't likely to happen unless everything collapses and leaves a vacuum to be filled.
So let's deal in reality instead.
Obama can do a lot that the McCain camp does not wish to do. We need reversals on issues like privacy and civil liberties. We need infrastructure improvements and this makes good sense in terms of investment and return from resulting generation of jobs etc...
We need health care for all Americans. Period. We need better education or we can forget staying in the game as a top player.
As for long term change. Failure ot fix the problems we can will help insure that no changes comes later either. We need to take the steps we can and avoid creating some kind of ultra-conservative moralist state that is both socially and globally at war.
If you are really an advocate of change you have to see that McCain and Palin represent change in the wrong direction and that Obama at least will delay the slide. We need to do what we can to reverse some of the policies and screw ups of the past 8 years. McCain will not do that. And the risk of Palin as president is just too terrifying should McCain keel over at some point.
You have to pick a side this time. And you had best pick one that at least keeps the door open for change later and not the one that will take us back to the flat earth view of the world Palin represents.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
Just what are you suggesting Nippon5? You don't like either but I don't see you offering any solutions either. It is easy to sit back and throw mud if you don't have to offer solutions. So what is your solution? Realistic solution mind you.
Look a 2 party system with corporate dominance isn't democracy. We get that. But within that framework there are things that can be done. Things that can make life better for Joe and Jane average in the US.
It is terribly quaint to think Palin's down home charm is a good motivation to vote for her. But hockey Mom charm won't sort medical coverage for the millions who don't have it. It won't educate children to keep us competitive and won't fix our infrastructure or cure our economy.
We need real, intelligent leadership not some gimmick leader from a state with more bears that people. If you like down home charm you should love the Iranian president. I'm sure to the Iranian equivalent of rednecks he looks like a guy with down home guts and charm. But look where his leadership is taking Iran. And you seem to want the same deal for the US?
Down home is fine for country music, BBQ parties, natsukashi memories of childhood and TV personalities. But what we need is intelligence, courage to change, open minded and yes liberal leadership who are not afraid to invest in what our nation needs. We've had enough of redneck leadership for one generation.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
Moral conservatives, read as flat earthers who wish to impose their ideas upon everyone else in the US. What separates this kind of rigid moralist thinking from the kind of rigid moralist thinking we see in the Islamic fundamentalist we are at war with?
America used to stand for tolerance and freedom. It stood by the separation of religious edicts and a securlar society. But Palin and her type would roll us back to a time when faith and faith based morality were legislated and shoved down people's throats.
As for Obama and Iraq. Sooner or later you guys are going to have to let go of Iraq and let Iraqis take responsibility for their own nation. A staged withdrawal is the right plan.
As for bankrupt. We had a budget surplus under Clinton and an economic meltdown under Bush. So who is the danger?
As for Israel vs Iran. By making a conflict with Iran we empower the government there. Had we not gone into Iraq, the democracy movement in Iran would be in better shape today. We have empowered Iran and we will see negative consequences for this. As for Israel, it is time we stopped blindly supporting a nation that practices Apartheid against the native Palistinians. This is the main root of Islamic and middle east hatred for the US. We need to be less black and white about Israel and work to solve the root issues in the region.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
Look the conflict in Afghanistan is where we need to focus our attention and Obama has rightly pointed that out. Iraq was a personal side show by America's worst ever president. An intelligent leader would have leveraged global sympathy and gone after Bin Laden instead of starting a war with people who had zero to do with 911.
As a result he has empowered Iran in the region and failed utterly to do anything significant about Al Quaida or the global terror issue. Except perhaps offering the terroristst the best training facilities money could buy.
And that is before we start talking about failed economic policy and overall domestic denial.
McCain will be more of the same. And our soldiers, citizens and children cannot afford another four years of idiotic leadership. Especially should McCain die and zero experience Palin become a puppet for her advisers.
If Americans are foolish enough to make McCain and Palin president, then the country deserves the economic and social backwardness such a decision will bring. How much flat earth thinking can a nation survive?
McCain and Palin will go down in history as the last straw in the decline of the American Empire. Or Obama and Biden could be the last foothold that kept us out of the Abyss.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
Look we know that there is not a vast difference between DEMs and GOP when it comes to many issues. But we have to vote one of them in in November and I would rather have someone who knows the world is round instead of flat. The better of two evils.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
It is a headline because the guy is Japanese and Japanese news is about Japanese whatever...
Major world events are always ignored here in favor of some tiny story about something related to Japan.
Posted in: Residents gripe about billionaire neighbor in Hawaii
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tkoind2
Palin is clearly folksy trailer trash, not unlike our silver spoon fed current president and his more expensive trailer.
If the American public vote this team into office, the rest of the worl can just write us off as we are going back in time to the days of down home logic and flat earth reasoning.
Moderator: The expression "folksy trailer trash" has no place in an exchange of views among mature readers.
Posted in: Biden, Palin spar over Iraq, economy in debate
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tkoind2
Does taking care of a couple families by renting them properties undo all the other issues? Like ignoring public concern over his properties, imposing up on the community, all the real estate scamming?
What kind of logic are you using? You need to look at the whole picture and not just one corner of it.
Posted in: Residents gripe about billionaire neighbor in Hawaii